Big Data technologies offer a huge opportunity to organizations to consolidate data from a variety of data sources and derive meaningful insights from it that can help in achieving business growth. With this opportunity, there are also challenges with respect to information security. Database technologies offer a variety of ways to implement information security. SAP HANA uses analytic authorizations to implement row-level security ensuring the information is consumed only by its rightful users. However, SAP HANA does not offer a column-level security feature out of the box. Abhijit Ingale describes the process to implement column-level security in SAP HANA.

Kehinde Eseyin shows how to activate tracing to resolve authorization errors in SAP HANA. You then can troubleshoot authorization errors related to repository role activation, SQL privileges, and analytical privileges.

Taha M. Mahmoud shows how to implement security in the Universe using enterprise database security tables. He also provides a comparison between using enterprise database security tables or using the Information Design Tool security editor to help you to understand when and where to use each approach.

Sapna Modi explains how to customize an ABAP Test Cockpit (ATC) check variant, to transport it, and to set up ATC reports. See how to decide if an error should be corrected or ignored and learn to manage the mass results of ATC reports runs.

Taha M. Mahmoud shows how to use the security editor in the Information Design Tool to create security profiles. There are two main types of security profiles: data security and business security. Learn why you need to have a security matrix in place before implementing Universe security and get sample matrices to use as templates. Also, see a video demo about how to use the security editor to create different security profiles.

Taha M. Mahmoud offers a comprehensive introduction to the enterprise security model in the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform. Learn about the main differences among the three different security levels in the SAP BusinessObjects BI platform 4.x: object-level, application-level, and Universe-level security. Find the right references to know more about each security level, and get two helpful security matrix templates to use for your own security implementation projects.

Juan Pablo Perez-Etchegoyen explains the details of the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) alert TA16-132A issued by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the vulnerability that triggered it. He also describes the mitigation steps that organizations using SAP systems need to follow to close the security gap potentially opened by this vulnerability.

Every day users extract potentially business-critical information SAP applications for the purpose of reporting, analytics, and collaboration. Access to data stored inside SAP applications is strictly regulated by roles and authorizations. However, data that can be viewed can typically be downloaded from SAP applications. Michael Kummer explains that once the data has left the secure boundaries of the SAP system, it is at risk of being exposed to loss and theft. This is an often-overlooked gap that is complicated by the fact that SAP security teams have limited control over data outside the SAP environment.

Rakesh Kalahasthi walks you through a step-by-step approach to overcome a limitation when you are developing geographical charts in SAP Lumira by pulling data from SAP Business Warehouse (SAP BW) powered by SAP HANA. SAP Lumira doesn’t allow you to create geographical charts by directly accessing SAP BW data models. This drawback can be addressed by importing optimized InfoCubes as native SAP HANA models and accessing them in SAP Lumira, which provides the ability to develop all types of geographical charts.

Faisal Altaf explains how to generate email alerts on the display or change of any critical node in the SAP Customizing IMG (transaction code SPRO) using an implicit enhancement option. For example, if any user wants to display or change rule maintenance of Bank Communication Management, which is a very critical part of the configuration, the system should send alerts to managers so that they can take immediate action against the activity if required.

Gain an understanding of supported and unsupported functionalities in the SAP Access Control system. Kehinde Eseyin shows how to configure the system correctly to achieve your defined business requirements.

Anjali Butley explains how to manage stakeholder access for SAP Integrated Business Planning for sales and operations 4.0. She also describes the challenges of ensuring that SAP Integrated Business Planning for sales and operations data is accessed and shared by the right users.

Ned Falk gives an overview of the techniques used to build analytic privileges to control access to the data in information views (calculation, analytic, and attribute) in SAP HANA. He shows the options of using SQL privileges and XML-based analytical privileges, along with dynamic versions of both to accomplish row-level security. He also discusses the difference between both catalog (run-time) and repository (design-time) role creation of these privileges.